Best for Baby | Expert Baby Advice & Support for Overwhelmed Mums
Jul 10, 2026 · 32 min · 10 segments
In this episode, Lisa shares the practical tips that completely changed her own experience of becoming a mum. From easing pregnancy nausea to making the first postpartum poo less frightening…
And we'll be looking at, you know, the pregnant stage, we'll be looking at the hospital stage, and we'll l- be looking at the early days of having a, a little one.
And so to start in pregnancy, most women do experience morning sickness, um, and even if it's not full-blown morning sickness, it might be bits of nausea here or there, or feeling a bit woozy from time to time.
I don't think I've ever met someone who said, "Oh no, I didn't feel a single thing.
I didn't feel at all nauseous or woozy." And the interesting thing is that morning sickness traditionally will last, um, for the first trimester, and then it tends to get a bit better.
However, we are finding it more and more common nowadays that it persists into the second trimester, and sometimes the whole way through.
And people are starting to speculate if it's actually the morning sickness, and that is caused by a rise in a hormone, um, that is found in the body when we are pregnant called HCG.
Now they're starting to speculate if some of the nausea that we feel as pregnant women isn't as a result of that, but it's actually as a result of our pregnancy multivitamins.
Now there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of this, so I think it's worth having a think about.
Um, I'm certainly not saying stop your multivitamins, but there are ways around it if you are battling with nausea, particularly past the first trimester.
And first of all, the multivitamins can contribute to nausea because a lot of them contain iron.
Now we know when you are prescribed iron because you have anemia and lower iron blood levels, it- one of the side effects can be nausea.
And the interesting thing is that a lot of pregnant women don't actually need an iron supplement just because they're pregnant.
It's not one of the main vitamins we kind of think are necessary for pregnancy.
And so unless you've been prescribed it during your pregnancy, you may not even need iron, which means you could switch your multivitamin to one that doesn't contain iron, and then perhaps you won't have those effects if your nausea is being caused by the multivitamin.
Now your zinc and your vitamin C can cause nausea, particularly when they're given in higher doses and particularly when they're taken on an empty stomach.
They are kind of more, shall we say, mainstream, more perhaps, um, understandable to be taking as a pregnant person, um, because they're supplements that may be more needed.
Um, and so if you are taking a, a pregnancy multivitamin, you wouldn't wanna just go and find one without those, and you probably wouldn't be able to find a pregnancy multivitamin without those two things in it.
So what they tend to suggest then is that instead of taking your multivitamin first thing in the morning, like most people do, I mean, that's what everyone does when they take a vitamin, they do it first thing in the morning.
But actually what they're saying is have a good meal, your dinner usually, and then take your vitamin before bed because you will still have, unless you go to bed hours and hours and hours after you've eaten, you will still have not be taking it on a very empty stomach, and then you go to sleep.
And so if you can fall asleep before the nausea kicks in, it doesn't tend to bother you.
And so that's usually a pretty good tip if you are taking a multivitamin that you really like that contains iron, zinc, or vitamin C that you wanna keep taking, is to take it at night.
Now obviously I'm not a doctor and I, I don't know you, so you have to look at it yourself and discuss this with your own doctor.
But a lot of the time, not everyone actually needs a pregnancy multivitamin.
And we'll be looking at, you know, the pregnant stage, we'll be looking at the hospital stage, and we'll l- be looking at the early days of having a, a little one.
And so to start in pregnancy, most women do experience morning sickness, um, and even if it's not full-blown morning sickness, it might be bits of nausea here or there, or feeling a bit woozy from time to time.
I don't think I've ever met someone who said, "Oh no, I didn't feel a single thing.
I didn't feel at all nauseous or woozy." And the interesting thing is that morning sickness traditionally will last, um, for the first trimester, and then it tends to get a bit better.
However, we are finding it more and more common nowadays that it persists into the second trimester, and sometimes the whole way through.
And people are starting to speculate if it's actually the morning sickness, and that is caused by a rise in a hormone, um, that is found in the body when we are pregnant called HCG.
Now they're starting to speculate if some of the nausea that we feel as pregnant women isn't as a result of that, but it's actually as a result of our pregnancy multivitamins.
Now there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of this, so I think it's worth having a think about.
Um, I'm certainly not saying stop your multivitamins, but there are ways around it if you are battling with nausea, particularly past the first trimester.
And first of all, the multivitamins can contribute to nausea because a lot of them contain iron.
Now we know when you are prescribed iron because you have anemia and lower iron blood levels, it- one of the side effects can be nausea.
And the interesting thing is that a lot of pregnant women don't actually need an iron supplement just because they're pregnant.
It's not one of the main vitamins we kind of think are necessary for pregnancy.
And so unless you've been prescribed it during your pregnancy, you may not even need iron, which means you could switch your multivitamin to one that doesn't contain iron, and then perhaps you won't have those effects if your nausea is being caused by the multivitamin.
Now your zinc and your vitamin C can cause nausea, particularly when they're given in higher doses and particularly when they're taken on an empty stomach.
They are kind of more, shall we say, mainstream, more perhaps, um, understandable to be taking as a pregnant person, um, because they're supplements that may be more needed.
Um, and so if you are taking a, a pregnancy multivitamin, you wouldn't wanna just go and find one without those, and you probably wouldn't be able to find a pregnancy multivitamin without those two things in it.
So what they tend to suggest then is that instead of taking your multivitamin first thing in the morning, like most people do, I mean, that's what everyone does when they take a vitamin, they do it first thing in the morning.
But actually what they're saying is have a good meal, your dinner usually, and then take your vitamin before bed because you will still have, unless you go to bed hours and hours and hours after you've eaten, you will still have not be taking it on a very empty stomach, and then you go to sleep.
And so if you can fall asleep before the nausea kicks in, it doesn't tend to bother you.
And so that's usually a pretty good tip if you are taking a multivitamin that you really like that contains iron, zinc, or vitamin C that you wanna keep taking, is to take it at night.
Now obviously I'm not a doctor and I, I don't know you, so you have to look at it yourself and discuss this with your own doctor.
But a lot of the time, not everyone actually needs a pregnancy multivitamin.
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